Ozy and Millie

History

Ozy and Millie originally started as a print comic strip in a Washington college newspaper, the Copper Point Journal, in 1997 using ink and brush as drawing implements. Simpson claims to have been influenced by comics and cartoons such as Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, The Simpsons and Pogo. It became an irregular webcomic in early 1998. In June 1998, it became a Monday-Friday daily strip. In the same year, Simpson won a newspaper syndicates' college cartoonist award. When the strip began, Simpson's artistic style was similar to that in Calvin and Hobbes. In 2000, the strip went on hiatus and returned with a new, unique style. The strip also went on hiatus several times. It was once on hiatus for five months, between August 23, 2003 to January 22, 2004. Between January 30, 2004, and January 12, 2009 Simpson also ran another strip, I Drew This, a webcomic specifically about her political views, which also appear in Ozy and Millie. In 2002, the strip won the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic". Ozy and Millie also won the 2006 and 2007 Ursa Major Awards for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip".

Ozy

Ozymandias Justin Llewellyn is a ten-year-old fox of an unidentified species (also called an "Adolescent Gray Zen Fox") who attends North Harbordale Elementary School in Seattle, together with his friend Millie. He was originally supposed to be a wolf, until a fan showed Simpson a photo of Arctic fox cubs, that Simpson claimed were "absolute ringers" for Ozy. However, Ozy retained his whisker marks. Ozy's full name, Ozymandias Justin Llewellyn, is a reference to the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

Ozy is recognised by his large top hat, which he got from his father Llewellyn when he adopted Ozy. The only other clothing he wears is a vest, which makes him the target of some of Millie's practical jokes. He is adept at letting Millie's pranks pass by without effect, but he does suffer bullying at the hands of the school jock, Jeremy, who likes to stuff Ozy into rubbish bins. Ozy also suffers from annual baldness, usually through either a freak accident or because of Millie. Although it is caused by a gypsy curse (later revealed by Llewellyn to be a myth) which has passed on through Ozy's adoptive father's heritage largely unnoticed, it does affect Ozy badly since he is the first Llewellyn with any hair to lose. Ozy is also quiet and serene, usually playing the "straight person". Under Llewellyn's guidance, Ozy also practices Zen; or rather a humorous version of it.

Ozy is told by Llewellyn that his birth mother's name was Shelley and that she disappeared after discovering perfection when she created the "perfect" ice cream flavor, but since absolute perfection is incompatible with the world, she ascended to a higher plane of existence.

Ozy's father left before he was born and became a monk. The pair met when the monk came to town for a visit, though Ozy decided to stay with Llewellyn, whom he considered his "true" dad.

Millie

Millicent Mehitabel Mudd, better known as Millie, is a ten-year-old red fox girl who is Ozy's best friend. Millie is usually seen wearing a set of blue denim overalls. Unlike Ozy, who is calm, Millie is chaotic and manic, both in the destruction she leaves behind and the ways she devises of avoiding work. She is a rebel and is opposed to any form of authority, which regularly leads to confrontations with both her teacher, Ms. Sorkowitz, and her mother, Mililani Mudd. Her destructive and rebellious habits not only get herself into trouble, but Ozy too. Her most infamous antic was giving Ozy a haircut only to accidentally shave off all his fur. Although she is normally manic, she also has a strong sense of justice, facing the inexplicable wrongs of life and the world she sees. However, her rebellions are mostly limited to annoying her mother, playing jokes on Ozy and disrupting the peace at school. None of which matters any less to her, as long as she has fun doing it. Millie says aloud what others think, and does what others, for fear of reaction from the people around them, would not dare. She, like Ozy, often tries to answer the most important questions in life, but her method of finding the answers makes her unique.

Llewellyn

Ozy's adoptive father, known only as Llewellyn, is a red dragon. Llewellyn and other members of his dragon family have been responsible for running several secret conspiracies. He also lends both Ozy and Millie advice, although his advice tends to be nonsense. He has also tried to run for U.S. president – first under the "Rainbow Peace Party" in 1968, the "People With Nothing Better To Do" Party in 2000, then under the "Zen Party" in 2004 and 2008. He also runs his house as a separate nation: Greater Llewellynlland. His favourite pastime is playing the "House Rules Parcheesi", a game which has many, very complicated rules, that is claimed to be rather opposite to Calvinball. Llewellyn married Millie's Mother at the end of the Daily Strip. Of all the characters in Ozy and Millie, Simpson has claimed that Llewellyn is her favorite.

Ms. Mudd

Ms. Mililani Minerva Mudd, Millie's mother, is a lawyer, who is as an older, wiser, more temperate version of Millie. She was like Millie in her childhood, and as a result knows how to deal with any trouble caused by her, much to Millie's annoyance. While Ms. Mudd knows how to deal with Millie, she is also the first to lend her support if there is anything amiss. She married Llewellyn at the end of the strip's run in a storyarc from November–December 2008. Her full name was revealed on October 1, 2008.

Other characters

Other characters in Ozy and Millie include Avery, a raccoon friend who constantly tries to be "cool," even ditching his "uncool" friends such as Ozy. Ironically, his friend Stephan the aardvark is the nerdiest character in the strip. Avery's younger brother, Timulty, constantly undermines his coolness. The two major antagonists are Felicia the sheep, a "popular girl" who teases Millie for being too individualistic, and Jeremy the jock rabbit who bullies Ozy.

Other minor characters include Ms. Sorkowitz, Ozy and Millie's kangaroo teacher and Principal Beau Vine, the bull principal of the school who allows bullying believing that, "Repeated exposure to unprovoked assault squelches unhealthy nonconformist tendencies." Dr. I. Wahnsinnig (German for insane or mad), is a ring-tailed lemur psychiatrist of the school who fights with Vine over school issues. Ozy's dragon cousin Isolde is another character who, like Llewellyn, is in charge of various conspiracies. Another character is pirate Captain Locke, a child pirate from an alternate dimension on the other side of Llewellyn's couch, in which people age backwards. Locke, currently the same age as Millie, is also her biological father.

Reception

Critic Fred Patten is one of the main supporters of the strip. In 2001, he wrote that the strip was, "a gently humorous fantasy with a liberal political philosophy." In 2006, Patten still claimed that, "Ozy and Millie is one of the top anthropomorphic cartoon strips on the Internet," although he did also comment negatively about the loss of colour in between changes of printed editions of books. The comic is also popular because of its relatively inoffensive content, with one person writing that it was, "Suitable for readers of all ages, really."

Collected editions

Two series of Ozy and Millie books have been formed, the first of which was discontinued and replaced by the second. Simpson wrote that she would "be condensing the first five books into three that will be larger but cost the same, and making them as comprehensive as I can make them." Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall included six pages of interview illustrated with Ozy and Millie strips in Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online Cartoonists.

Discontinued Plan 9 Publications books

‡ This book appears to have been published with the same ISBN as another (a publication error).